Fans of Nintendo have been clamouring for mobile games from the Japanese giant for years. And pretty soon they'll get their wish.

Unfortunately, the company's most famous icon, Mario, won't be putting in an appearance yet .

Instead, the game is a chat-based app called Miitomo. It encourages players to create avatars and use them to talk to each other.

"The people you will be able to communicate with are limited to your friends whom you have registered as Friends," said Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima .

The app will launch on both iOS and Android in March and Nintendo says that anyone who's interested can pre-register from February 17th.

The first mobile app from Nintendo is called Miitomo
The first mobile app from Nintendo is called Miitomo



Whether Nintendo's first foray into the mobile world will be able to challenge the might of dominant social apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger remains to be seen.

But Miitomo is the first of five mobile apps that Nintendo plans to release before the end of March. So far, the company's remained quiet on what the other ones will be.

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